What is Nintendo LABO?

What is Nintendo LABO?

Those of you who have seen the Nintendo LABO ad already have a little bit of a clue to what this new product is all about. But here on the Nigel Clarke blog I’ll prove even that is just the tip of the iceberg. The full capabilities of this exciting innovation in the gaming industry will blow your mind. On Friday 16th of March I attended a special workshop where i was able to experience all aspects of the system.

The core elements of the LABO experience are MAKE, PLAY, DISCOVER. Each has it’s own merits and each will attract different audiences. But what is great is that all of them take hand held games consoling into a new era. Read on and you’ll understand why.

Make

The first and flagship LABO pack is the Variety Pack. Inside this pack you receive flat pack cardboard that can be assembled to make 5 items. The RC Car, The House, The Motorbike, The Piano and The Fishing Rod. The instructions for building all the items is on the software and can be viewed on your Nintendo Switch. This is great, because whether you are an advanced builder or new to this, you are in control of the speed. Once you have built your item what is great for the artistic ones out there, is that you can customise your creations. Using colouring pencils, stickers, pipe cleaners, basically whatever you like. This means that no two LABO items will ever be the same.

On launch there will be a separate Robot Pack. This only has one item to make and is a little more advanced but the principals are just the same. I’m sure there will be more packs to come but there is plenty here for people to get their heads around in the early stages.

Play

This is self explanatory but so much fun! Your Switch screen and joy cons integrate with your creations and bring them to life so you can play with them. When I first saw the promo video I wondered if the items created would be sturdy enough for the kind of environments they would be subjected to. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the build quality. The mechanisms and items are pretty solid and definitely stood up to some vigorous game play. Don’t get me wrong, there will be one or two items destroyed by irate players (notice I didn’t say kids) but this will be due to sore losing and unreasonable force.
With 5 items and many different game modes, there are hours of fun to be had here.

Discover

This is where inquisitive minds will truly be sparked. Nintendo LABO is also all about learning how your different items work. This isn’t just limited to the mechanical parts of your creations. It extends to the software and how it receives information from the creations (There is a little footage of this in the video below). Even further than this it even dives into basic coding and computer programming. When learning about this side of LABO, I couldn’t help but realise how far the rabbit hole must go. This is really only the 1st phase of the Nintendo LABO universe. Be excited and prepared for where they may take us next.

More LABO?

Please check out the video of my day at the workshop below. And if you like Nintendo LABO and want to test it out or maybe win your own Variety Pack once launched, please make sure you are fully subscribed to the Backstage area of my website. I’m hoping to bring members some good news in the near future. Keep those fingers crossed. Nx

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